Farewell My Good Friend, Joseph Ubilima

Joe has left me without saying Good bye.
I don't even know how I met Joseph Ubilima a decade ago in Shomolu in Lagos city.

He was an IT professional with a small cyber cafe in Onipanu, near the Shomolu Post Office. I frequented his cyber cafe before I bought my first laptop from him. An IBM Thinkpad laptop that I used for the production of my books and screenplays. I later found out that he also attended the same secondary school I went to, the
famous St. Gregory's College in Obalende on the Lagos Island.
We became good friends and I met his family. His resourceful wife and children appreciated our friendship.
In 2013, Joe introduced the ambitious beautiful young woman, Franca Aide to me. She wanted to be an actress and a model. And she became one of my favourite female friends. I did my best to motivate and support her and she became the first @girlrising Ambassador in Nigeria after she played an active role in the Nigerian première of the acclaimed documentary film, "Girl Rising" to celebrate the first ever United Nations' International Day of the Girl Child in Nigeria on October 11, 2013 at the Silverbird Cinemas in the Silverbird Galleria on Victoria Island and on October 12, at the same venue we hosted Holy Gordon, Executive Producer for the "Girl Rising" film at the center of the movement. In 2014, we started our Girls United Together for Success (GUTS) project to promote the education, protection and welfare of underprivileged girls in Nigeria. In 2015, we successfully hosted the Nigerian première of the documentary film, "HE NAMED ME MALALA" of the fearless young Pakistani human rights activist Malala Yousafzai, champion of female education and the youngest Nobel Prize laureate. The event was held to celebrate the Nations' International Day of the Girl Child in Nigeria on October 11, 2015 at the Silverbird Cinemas in the Silverbird Galleria on Victoria Island, Lagos.
GUTS was on the world map of UNICEF's State of the World's Children 2015. And Franca later featured in the documentary film, "Lagos in Motion" and photo book in 2016.

Joseph Ubilima was an unsung visionary who believed in the Nigerian Dream.